The generation, replication and transmission of information by automated technology has far surpassed a person's ability to keep up with the information. Not only is this true in the business world, but our leisure activities also involve sorting through an overwhelming number of choices and making intelligent selections. For example, there is an abundance of entertainment in digital-audio or digital-video form, such as compact discs ("CD's"), mini-discs, digital audio tape ("DAT"), laser discs, computer graphics, high-definition television ("HDTV"), etc. The accelerating ability of communication systems to convey this information virtually instantaneously means that we have access to many thousands of selections.
The trend is for computers to be integrated with household devices, such as telephones or televisions, giving rise to "smart phones" or "intelligent" or "interactive" televisions. A telephone with computer capability could be used to "download" digital information, representing, for example, music selections, into the memory of the telephone for later playback. Alternatively, the downloaded information could be written to a medium such as a writeable compact disc. Thus, the smart phone would be capable of downloading high-fidelity music onto a CD that could be played at the user's leisure on his or her sophisticated stereo system. Since the telephone is connected to a vast network, such a system would provide an efficient method of exchange of sound information. In effect, a user could, for example, "dial-up" a central processor and employ a push-button phone or other input device to request music by the user's favorite recording artist and have it downloaded into the user's home. A similar setup is possible for visual images downloaded to an interactive television via, e.g., a cable network that connects the interactive television to a central site where movies are stored and available for downloading.
However, one problem with these systems is that it is often difficult for a user to keep abreast of all of the possible selections for sound and image data, that is, current releases by a favorite recording artist or current movies that might be of interest to the user. The speed with which new entertainment selections are provided, not to mention the past decades of audio and visual works already in existence, results in a huge number of selections that is ever-growing.
One way for a user, or subject, to make a selection from a large collection of digital "objects" is to allow the user to input selection information into a network. The selection information is then sent to the central or host processor which categorizes the types of objects, e.g., music or video selections, that are of interest to the user and presents the user with these categories of selections. However, the categories are usually broad.
For example, in the music realm a user might make selections in the categories of "country music" or "jazz." These categories are extremely broad, each encompassing many thousands of recordings. On the other hand a user might indicate a specific artist, although this is extremely limiting in that only recordings by that specific artist can logically be associated with the user's selection. Also, this method of having the user provide category selections places the burden of keeping track of new developments on the user himself. The categories may change, for example, rock music has split into various other categories such as heavy-metal, modern, and alternative. Category selection is also limiting to the user since it can only provide what the user knows how to ask for.